How much weight does a soldier carry on him during combat

Question

How much does the bags, the uniforms, armors, the weapons and other other ammunition weight combined. I have seen a few soldiers, they carry very heavy bags and special clothes with lots of loaded pockets and lots of ammunition and weapons. So how much weight on an average does a soldier carry when he/she is fighting?

What do the bags and pockets contain?

http://www.globalpov.com/images/soldier.jpg

Here is like a fully loaded soldier. What all things does he carry during combat?

Answer 1

It depends on the type of mission...

I carried about 90 lbs of stuff in Afghanistan (with the 82nd Airborne) mainly in my rucksack and that was dropped off at a patrol base (unless we flew in) if we were close enough to the objective or were engaged by the enemy. Normally we carried assault packs which weighted about 50 lbs with all the ammo, batteries, water and extras we needed to fight and survive. Oh yeah, plus the body armor, web vest and helmet's weight was a constant and came in around 40 lbs of extra fun. Add in the weather: extreme cold or heat and altitude to boot and some you have to fight...the is a weight you can't see.

In Iraq, on each tour I carried everything but the rucksack (patrol and assault packs) and seemed to drove alot more to the objectives, then dismounted. Still walking around in the heat was no fun.

So it depends: recon, ambush, movement to contact, raid, condone and search...what your mission is. Then that's what the fighting man carries. Sometimes it's too much, but you can never have too much ammo and water.

If I could find a way to post it, I could show you a packing list of some of the things in all our pouches and pockets. We would have first aid bandages, ammo, food, hand grenades, MREs (broken down of course), notebook, pens, maps, radio batteries, a mortar round (for the company 60mm guns), a belt of 100rds of 7.62mm for the M240B machine guns, more ammo, 2 x 1qt canteens (can't always trust a Camelback), VS-17 marking panel, small squad handheld radio, flex cuffs, candy, a book to read, more ammo in mags, weapons cleaning kit, phase book of the local language, compass, GPS, and a dozen more things but you get the picture....

Answer 2

When my husband was infantry, he told me that the weight was 50 lbs but could meet or surpass 100 lbs. It just depends on what is required to carry.

Answer 3

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Answer 4

A lot of it depends on the mission, the expected duration and if you are expecting heavy fire or just a scouting mission.

We generally have at least 50 pounds of gear in the pack not including the jacket and weapons.

In Iraq it was miserable because we had to carry a lot of water also and all that armor and clothes in the desert heat was miserable. We just wanted to strip it off at the first chance we got.

Generally we bring ammo, some MRE's, a field first aid kit, water, 2 way radio and any personal good luck items like pictures of family or religious items.

I'd say with all the gear on the difference in bare weight is about 80 pounds carried.